Post #7407 by Trader Woody on Mon, Sep 2, 2002 6:24 AM

The following is taken from 'The Straight Dope':

"Regarding Spam, is it true, as travel writer Paul Theroux claims, that the people of the South Pacific love their Spam because it tastes so much like . . . people? --Mary E. Sage, via the Internet

Cecil replies:

Marketing Spam must present some unique challenges. Imagine the conversation in the boardroom:

Spam product manager #1: I've got some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Spam is hugely popular among the people of the South Pacific. The bad news is that, according to the famous travel writer Paul Theroux, the islanders dig it because they're ex-cannibals and they think Spam tastes like human flesh.

Spam product manager #2: Hmm. Is this a problem . . . or an opportunity?

Let's start with the facts, then segue to the rumors. Spam is one of the favorite foods of Pacific islanders, including Hawaiians, who consume it in vast quantities and consider it a delicacy. This offends the upper-middle-class sensibilities of some writers, who consider Spam emblematic of all that is vile about western culture. For example, in The Island of the Colorblind, Oliver Sacks writes about the fare served during his visit to the island of Pingelap:

We were all revolted by the Spam which appeared with each meal--invariably fried; why, I wondered, should Pingelapese eat this filthy stuff when their own basic diet was both healthy and delicious? ... How was it that not only the Pingelapese, but all the peoples of the Pacific, seemingly, could fall so helplessly, so voraciously, on this stuff, despite its intolerable cost to their budgets and their health? I was not the first to puzzle about this; later, when I came to read Paul Theroux's book The Happy Isles of Oceania, I found his hypothesis about this universal Spam mania.

Theroux writes:

It was a theory of mine that former cannibals of Oceania now feasted on Spam because Spam came the nearest to approximating the porky taste of human flesh. `Long pig' as they called a cooked human being in much of Melanesia. It was a fact that the people-eaters of the Pacific had all evolved, or perhaps degenerated, into Spam-eaters. And in the absence of Spam they settled for corned beef, which also had a corpsy flavor.

Nowhere does Sacks say he actually believes Theroux's theory, and it seems clear enough that the often peevish Theroux is exercising his tongue-in-cheek . . . uh, perhaps not the best choice of words. His ironic sense of humor. So far I haven't been able to get him on the phone to confirm this, but what's he going to say?

Yes, it was a joke.
No, it wasn't a joke. I have personal knowledge that human flesh tastes like pork and corned beef.
Still, these things have a way of taking on a life of their own. Lest our great-grandchildren find this wacky story circulating on the Intergalactinet in the year 2098, let it be known that:

There is no correlation between alleged prior cannibalism and love of Spam. As Sacks notes, the Spam-craving Pingelapese had no tradition of cannibalism. More important, Hawaii, epicenter of Pacific rim Spamophilism, has been more or less cannibal-free since the arrival of Christianity in the early 19th century.
The popularity of Spam among Pacific islanders can be readily explained by the scarcity and expense of other types of meat and the lack or unreliability of refrigeration. Fresh meat is stored primarily in a self-propelled biounit known as a pig, which is only slaughtered for major occasions. If you're looking for a spicy bit to have with your breadfruit you can't beat the convenience of Spam.
Still, let's concede one point to Theroux. Does Spam taste corpsy? Of course it tastes corpsy--it's meat. We're just arguing about the identity of the deceased.

TOLDJA

Cecil, my man!

You were right the first time. Yes, it is a joke. In spite of my solemn declaration in The Happy Isles of Oceania, the voracious Spam consumption in the Pacific is not conclusive evidence of a cannibal past.

And I enjoyed seeing my laborious joke cleverly adumbrated in yet another of your witty, wide-ranging, and inexhaustibly erudite columns.

But also, speaking as a vegetarian, all meat-eating looks to me like the first step down the road to anthropophagy. --With good wishes, Paul Theroux"

Trader Woody